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We already knew smartphone shipments have never been higher, and now we know that, in Q3 at least, the beneficiary is Samsung.

According to ABI Research and Strategy Analytics, market watchers both, the Korean chaebol - a multi-industry colossus - took more than a third of the market. According to SA, Samsung’s share was 35.2 per cent, achieved by shipping 56.9 million smartphones.

As ABI noted, that’s more the twice the 26.9 million units Apple shipped during the same three-month period, enough iPhones to give the Cupertino firm 16.6 per cent of the market. Both figures come from SA.

Apple and Samsung both increased their market shares, indicating how the smartphone market is increasingly becoming a three-horse race: these two and the rest.

Apple’s shipments were up year on year 57.3 per cent, Samsung up 102.5 per cent. The others together saw shipments rise merely 4.1 per cent, conclusively demonstrating that the first two, and Samsung very much in particular, are Hoovering up all the new buyers.

Apple’s figures will have been depressed to an extent by punters waiting for the iPhone 5, which didn’t arrive until the very end of the quarter. It will be interesting to see what impact that has on Apple’s share in Q4. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the partisan nature of technology markets means that Samsung probably hasn’t gained many Apple customers tired of waiting for an upgrade. It will have grabbed buyers from other Android vendors and from Nokia, not necessarily from its arch-rival.

Speaking of the Finnish phone giant, it shipped 6.3 million smartphones for a four per cent market share. Giant no longer, it seems.

Overall smartphone shipments rose 34.8 per cent, from 120 million to 161.7 million units. ®